


The Haymaker

by moonyloonylupin



Series: Cage-Fighting AU [2]
Category: Daredevil (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Daredevil (TV) Spoilers, JK several people actually did ask for this, M/M, Meet the Parents ish, specifically for season 3, the Cage-Fighting AU no one asked for but here I am, though this is not canon-compliant with that???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-06 22:58:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16396703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonyloonylupin/pseuds/moonyloonylupin
Summary: So Foggy may or may not spend a lot of Friday nights at that dive he met Matt at. It's all pretty much routine: joke, drink, fight, sex.Except this week turns out a little differently when Matt's mom just decides to show up.





	The Haymaker

**Author's Note:**

> **SEASON THREE SPOILERS**
> 
> A companion to [**The Sucker's Bet**](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10274804/chapters/22754156#workskin). You don't technically need to read it first, but I'd love it if you did!

So Foggy may or may not spend a lot of Friday nights at that dive he met Matt at, now that they’ve fucked each other from here to the goddamn Mars rover, barreling over boundaries and secrets alike for the sake of (what Foggy would admit) is a really good lay.

And a really good listener. A really good cook. A really good... yes, Foggy is well aware that he’s absolutely gone over this idiot who thinks getting the shit beat out of him (or beating the shit out of others, let’s be honest) is his idea of a good time. 

Marci has made fun of him for weeks now, but she’s also been gloating about the results of her quote-un-quote _brilliant ideas_. Foggy’s had to use his winnings from the first bet to buy lunch as repayment. 

But Foggy doesn’t hate it, y’know. He gets to watch his kind-of-boyfriend be sweaty and masculine and vaguely threatening, and then he gets to go back to Matt’s apartment and fuck the adrenaline out of him. Usually, he wakes up to an omelet. If he’s nice enough, Matt will even straddle his thighs and feed him. 

Because he’s a huge sap or a secret feeder, Foggy doesn’t know. Maybe both. They’ll get to it. 

And Foggy’s made some fun... not friends, exactly, but acquaintances. Acquaintances with whom he makes fun of Matt while he’s fighting to see if it throws him off. 

(It never does, but it does guarantee one of two things: Foggy getting bent over the couch or Foggy getting cock-blocked until Saturday morning out of spite. What Matt doesn’t know is that Foggy’s just as ridiculously content with cuddling as he is with just about anything else Matt can do to him.) 

There’s Claire, who runs the betting table and used to work at a hospital as a nurse before the corruption drove her out. Now she works at a non-profit clinic; shit pay, but better hours, and she doesn’t feel like she’s siphoning her soul away to a shitty directorial board. 

She’s biting and witty and absolutely gorgeous, and when he tells Matt, Matt simply goes, “I know,” and kisses Foggy like he’s drowning. 

Mr. Beautiful-Tall-Adonis Man - or Luke, as Foggy learned - is unexpectedly gentle and soft-spoken. He comes through to Midtown often, despite living in Harlem where he splits his time between a barbershop and being a mentor at a community center. 

He and Claire are so ridiculously in love, Foggy might be sick about it some days if he wasn’t so similarly gone on Matt. Not that Matt knows. He hopes. 

Danny is his favorite, though interacting with him is incredibly emotionally and socially taxing. Foggy's head is still spinning - several months later - from the revelation that Danny is _the_ Danny Rand, CEO of Rand Enterprises. Danny doesn't even wear shoes half the time; it's a trial just to convince him that he should absolutely have something on his feet in the basement at all times, what with the amount of glass sprinkled everywhere. He's essentially a Golden Retriever who got turned into a grown man, for the given definition of "grown", and Foggy loves his enthusiasm, but he always feels like he needs a nap after anything as short as a five minute conversation. 

He's great company, though, and gives good commentary, and pays for Foggy's drinks even though Danny never gets anything but Sprite. 

Jessica, on the other foot, is nothing short of terrifying and also a private investigator with an affinity for bottom shelf liquor. That’s about all Foggy knows, other than the fact that she’s low-key the protector of everyone in this bar. Shit goes down, Jess handles it. Luke doesn’t even have to lift a finger most nights. 

Foggy’s a fan of all of them; likes that Matt has this little support group of secretive, highly-skilled weirdos in his corner. 

He thought people would get the hint eventually: That, even though Matt is blind, he can still kick anyone’s ass. But Foggy supposes masculinity and ego are fragile and need to be constantly reconstructed and, also, drunk people are dumb, so a lot of the same guys come back every time. Matt’s odds do get better, though. No hope of another Sucker’s Bet and making it out like a bandit anymore. Besides, people would cry foul because Matt and Foggy don’t keep the fact that they’re kind-of-dating a secret, and it’s sort of an unfair advantage, if Foggy thinks about it. 

After every match, Matt stumbles out of the cage, vibrating with anticipation, and kisses the hell out of Foggy with everyone and God watching. Sometimes he even props him up on the betting table and makes himself at home between Foggy’s legs, much to Claire’s rightful (if amused) dismay. 

The way Matt smiles after each kiss, though, blood in his teeth, makes it weirdly worth it? Foggy hasn’t finished examining that, yet. 

Tonight marks five months since Matt brought Foggy home, not that Foggy’s counting or anything. 

Matt’s in the cage, barely getting started, when things go sideways. Foggy doesn’t know what happens, but one minute Matt is his usual amount of focused - teeth bared, hands up - and the next, he’s looking around wildly, just barely ducking away from the arm his opponent swings at his head. 

Danny makes a confused noise beside him and Claire’s brow furrows. 

“Seems like Lassie’s heard something,” Jessica mumbles into her drink, but Foggy can tell she’s gone on high alert, tenser than she usually is. 

“You see anything, Luke?” Claire asks, gathering the pot and locking it in the safety deposit box before sliding it toward Danny, who lays a protective hand over it. 

Luke doesn’t say anything, but his eyes are sharp and his jaw is clenched as he scans the dive. 

Foggy from five months ago might be panicking. He’s convinced the only reason he isn’t now is because Matt’s finally knocked out his opponent, albeit clumsily. It’s not his best fight, but he won it anyway. The ref - a relatively silent man who almost always has a cup of Starbucks in his hand, regardless of the hour - calls it and the crowd cheers. When he lets Matt out of the cage and slips past him to rouse the unconscious competitor, Matt stalks carefully toward where Foggy’s sitting. 

He immediately begins unwrapping his hands. 

“Gotta drop out of the rest, Claire,” Matt says, voice hoarse, the way it always is right after a fight. It still makes Foggy shiver. 

Claire relaxes, but just barely. “Why? What’d you hear?” 

Matt shakes his head. “It’s nothing bad, just...” he trails off and tilts his head toward Foggy. The smile Matt gives him is small, but there, and he leans in to give Foggy a soft kiss before grabbing a towel and scrubbing it over his hair. “How do I look?” he asks with a grin. 

“Like a shifty person who’s hiding things,” Foggy deadpans. 

Everyone laughs, even Jessica, for her definition of a laugh, and Matt just huffs. 

“What’s got you so spooked, Murdock?” Luke asks. 

Matt takes a moment to answer, digging his hoodie out of his gym bag and yanking it on over his sweat-through T-shirt. 

“My... mom just walked in upstairs. Pretty sure she’s coming down, my ears are still ringing a little from that haymaker. But I promised her I’d take it easy on the,” he gestures vaguely toward the cage, “fighting.” 

Foggy literally bursts out laughing. 

“ _What?_ Buddy, why does your mom even know you _do_ this?” Foggy's still trying to figure out what _he's_ supposed to tell _his own family_ Matt does for a living. He guesses he can just say Matt's a boxer. Not totally unbelievable, given that sweet, sweet Battlin' Jack Murdock lineage. 

“She has eyes everywhere,” Matt mumbles. He walks up to the betting board and goes for his name, which is always all the way at the bottom, wiping it off with the sleeve of his hoodie. 

“So I take it you don’t get that from her, then?” Jessica asks. Danny snorts. 

“Bad form, Jess.” 

She shrugs, but goes back to her drink, which has somehow magically refilled itself. 

“Also, apparently the seal of confession doesn’t extend toward my mother,” Matt grumbles. He turns to Foggy, eyes big and pleading. “Clean me up?” 

Foggy takes the towel and a bottle of water, scraping blood off Matt’s knuckles, face, and neck. 

“Wait, _Father Lantom_ sold you out?” Foggy's heard enough about Matt's visits to his church to know that it's exceptionally odd for Father Lantom to have squealed, unless under extreme duress. Foggy hopes he was not under _extreme duress_. 

“Mom is a terrifying nun.” 

“ _Your mother’s a nun?_ ” 

“I am,” a voice says, and Foggy nearly jumps out of his skin. Matt only grimaces. 

“I didn’t know she was that close,” Matt whispers, before turning around to face his mother. 

She’s a surprisingly petite woman, with angular features and dark brown eyes. Foggy would go so far to say that Matt looks nothing like her, except for the stubborn furrow in her brow that matches his and the way she looks generally unimpressed with her son’s antics. 

“Matthew,” she says. Her eyes flick back toward Foggy. He tries not to be too obvious about looking for a way out, but Danny’s slipped over to talk to the ref, hands and mouth moving faster than Foggy can reasonably catch. Jess had straight-up disappeared, and Luke and Claire are at the bar, sneaking covert glances back at Matt and his mom while making nice with the bartender. It’s either Foggy makes up some bullshit excuse, or he stays and… Meets the Parent(s). 

Foggy sighs and slides off the betting table. 

“Foggy Nelson, ma’am.” Foggy holds out his hand and gives her that smile he uses when he’s trying to get something from Jeri. He suspects it won’t work on her, just like it doesn’t work on Hogarth, but he’s gotta try something or he might spontaneously combust from sheer anxiety. “It’s nice to meet you.” 

“Is it?” she asks, but takes his hand anyway. 

Matt seems to realize that he’s just been standing there, slack-jawed, because he says in a rush, “Foggy, this is my mother, Sister Maggie.” 

She stares at Matt for a moment. When she smiles, it's not so much a _smile_ as a strange, slightly constipated quirk of her lips. 

"It's a pleasure," she finally admits. Foggy hadn't realized he was holding his breath until he let it out in a big, thankfully not boozy, whoosh. 

“Murdock!” the ref yells from his perch, a lifeguard-esque tower that's propped just above the edge of the cage, startling Foggy and, weirdly, even making Matt twitch a little. “You’re up!” 

“ _Shit_ ,” Matt hisses. 

Foggy can tell Matt's conflicted. He's never dropped out of a fight before. Whenever he's knocked out, it's because he's been outmatched, which Foggy's come to realize can actually happen. One time, Luke got in the cage and rocked Matt's shit. It was all in good fun, because Matt knows what Luke can do, but Foggy was rubbing salve on Matt's bruised ribcage all night and slept with a pillow fort between them because he was afraid he'd make it worse. 

Sister Maggie sighs and Foggy finally notices the tote bag hanging off her shoulder and from it she pulls fresh handwraps and a clean towel. “Murdock’s aren’t quitters, Matthew,” she says, and the grin she throws him is just as sharp and wild as Matt's own. 

Maybe Matt really does take after her. 

###

Foggy's gotta hand it to Matt: He's done some of his best fighting tonight. 

Matt doesn't win _all_ the time. He wins enough, but not always. And Foggy's been to enough fights at this point in their friendship that he knows what Matt looks like when he's really feeling it, and Matt's _really feeling it_ right now. He's definitely showing off. For him or for his mother, Foggy doesn't know. 

Guy after guy goes down hard, and when Matt exits the cage, he passes Foggy, trailing fingers lightly over his thigh before stopping in front of Sister Maggie, who hands him a water bottle and pats his face down with brutal efficiency, as if she's done this before. He'd almost feel put out if A. He doesn't think he has any sort of claim or right to feel that way, B. This wasn't Matt's literal mom, and C. Matt didn't make it a point of digging his fingers into Foggy's inseam every time he got his hand on him. 

If he's honest with himself, this interaction doesn't surprise Foggy at all. She had a child with Battlin' Jack Murdock and he turned out like... well, Battlin' Jack Murdock. She probably _has_ done this a million times before, for both of them; patching up wounds and mopping up sweat and blood. She stays pristine, her habit perfectly white despite the fact that Matt's literally dripping blood from a nasty uppercut to the jaw. Foggy thinks he probably bit his tongue. 

When Matt's back in the cage, Foggy sidles over to Sister Maggie, because he feels a little like a stranger in this place he's come to think of as his and because he thinks it's sort of rude of him to basically be ignoring her. Forget the fact that she most likely doesn't know anything about him and therefore can't judge him as a potential significant other. To her, he's probably just some guy Matt meets at the bar every once in a while. A Sometimes Friend. 

He's about to open his mouth to say something, but she beats him to it. 

"So how long have you and Matthew been together?" 

Foggy sputters a little, thankful he hasn't had a drink in over an hour and is still relatively coherent and sober at - he checks his phone - two in the morning. What's he supposed to say to that? 

"How did you-" 

"I have my ways," she says simply, folding the towel - which is now stained with blood and soaked through with sweat - over her arm. Foggy wonders if the black of her scapular is impervious to blood, or if he just can't see it. 

He's silent for a minute, watches Matt flip over the guy he's fighting to take his knees out from behind. 

"You get that out of Father Lantom, too?" 

Sister Maggie sniffs. "I can be quite persuasive when I want to be." 

Foggy has absolutely no doubts about that, considering her spawn. 

"So?" she continues. "How long?" 

"I'm not sure we necessarily count as _together_ , but..." Foggy's hoping he can just leave it at that, but the long-suffering look she gives him when he trails off reminds him of that look all mothers have, that _I'm-not-the-idiot-in-this-conversation_ look. "About five months. Give or take." 

She hums, neither acceptance nor denial, just a noise to let Foggy knows she heard him. She seems to be deliberating; she and Matt have the same thinking face. 

"So what you're saying is," she starts, and Foggy immediately bristles at the was her voice sounds, both unreadably stern and surprisingly amused, "My son hasn't had the decency to take you on a proper date and is perpetually beating around the bush and keeping you at arm's length? I bet this is the first you've heard of me, too, isn't it?" 

_Um_. Foggy's mouth drops open for a moment before clamping shut with an audible click of his teeth. Anything he says will be damning, both for him and for Matt. 

"I plead the Fifth?" is Foggy's less than stellar reply. Sister Maggie snorts. 

"Just like his stubborn mule of a father." 

"Mother!" Matt shouts from the cage, rolling to the ground and sweeping a leg out to unbalance his opponent, who crashes to the floor with a guttural groan. 

"Mind your manners, Matthew, the adults are talking," she calls back, flicking out the towel. 

###

It's hours later by the time the dive clears out. Sister Maggie spends the rest of the night appraising Foggy with a serious, assessing gaze, and Foggy has no trouble believing that Matt's father was definitely the soft one of that relationship. Matt wins. Money gets thrown about. 

When it's over, and Sister Maggie has cleaned Matt's wounds and bid a polite, if clipped, goodbye to Foggy, they find themselves once again outside in the alleyway next to the bar, Foggy held up against the wall with his legs wrapped around Matt's hips and a hand in Matt's hair, tipping his head back so Foggy can suck more bruises into Matt's jaw. 

"Y'know," he mumbles, gliding over Matt's chin, "I think your mom might hate me?" 

Matt groans, nosing over Foggy's face before pulling him into a deep kiss. "She hates everyone," he says against Foggy's lips, licking into his mouth. "Can we please not talk about my mom when my hand is down your pants?" 

"Your hand isn't down my pants," Foggy says, and gasps when Matt expertly undoes the button and zipper and slips his hand into Foggy's underwear. "Oh. Nevermind. Sure. Yeah. No mom talk." 

" _Thank you_ ," is Matt's emphatic reply as he wraps his hand around Foggy's cock and gives it a rough stroke, thumbing over the head. "Hey, Foggy?" 

Foggy can only come up with a soft, _Mhm_. His head falls back against the brick. 

"Wanna go out on a real date tomorrow? It's our anniversary, you know." 

Foggy's gasp is cut off by Matt descending on his mouth again, biting at Foggy's bottom lip and grinning like a madman. 

"You fucking sap."

**Author's Note:**

> [SticksandBones](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SticksandBones/pseuds/SticksandBones) said, and I quote: "you know that scene in which Maggie meets Jack at the boxing match? I'm imagining so many parallels between that and this scenario now."
> 
> I was tempted. Here we are.


End file.
